Vivek Kumar Jha
Postdoctoral Researcher in Astrophysics — Exploring galaxy evolution and AGNs using advanced modeling and multi-wavelength data
About Me
I am a Post Doctoral Fellow at the National Centre For Radio Astrophysics - Tata Institute Of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR) in Pune. Before joining here I worked briefly as a postdoc at the Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences (MCNS) in Manipal. I was born in Darbhanga, the northern district of Bihar state, also known as the cultural capital of the Mithila region. I obtained my B. Sc. degree from the University of Delhi and M. Sc. degree from the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). Having completed my school and University education in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, and partly in Tamil Nadu, I moved to the Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciencES (ARIES) for PhD. The observatory is located near the beautiful hill city of Nainital. My Ph.D. thesis is related to the extra-galactic domain of astrophysics. This website is my personal space where one may find articles/information related to my research, sometimes aimed at general understanding. Besides astronomy, I spend my time travelling, reading books, playing with animals, writing random things and discovering new technological advances. Drop me an email, in case you want to connect with me.
Employment
  • Postdoctoral Fellow
    Jul 2024 – Present, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics – TIFR, Pune, India
  • Postdoctoral Fellow
    Dec 2023 – Jun 2024, Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences (MCNS), Manipal, India
  • Project Associate (Scientific)
    Apr 2022 – Oct 2023, ARIES, Nainital, India
  • Senior Research Fellow (SRF)
    Mar 2020 – Jul 2021, ARIES, Nainital, India
  • Junior Research Fellow (JRF)
    Mar 2018 – Feb 2020, ARIES, Nainital, India
Education
  • Ph.D. in Astrophysics
    2018 – 2023, Aryabhatta Research Institute of observational sciencES (ARIES), Nainital, India
    Supervised by: Dr. Hum Chand and co-supervised by Prof. Shantanu Rastogi. Thesis submitted to: Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, India. (submitted in September 2023 and awarded in February 2024)
  • M.Sc. in Physics
    2015 – 2017, Banaras Hindu University
    Specialization in Space Physics.
  • B.Sc. in Physics (Honors)
    2011 – 2014, Deshbandhu College, University of Delhi
    Foundation in physics and mathematics.
Research

I'm currently working with the LSST Galaxies collaboration, focusing on stellar population synthesis (SPS) modeling to derive physical properties of galaxies from broadband photometry. You can learn more about this work here. During my Ph.D., I worked on mapping the inner regions of AGN using UV-optical variability and multi-band observations to understand structure and kinematics on sub-parsec scales. I continue to work on interesting projects related to the variability of AGN. Check out this animation for a visual on quasar interiors (courtesy ESO). I'm also a member of the LSST AGN Science collaboration, where I follow developments in time-domain science with AGNs, with the volume of data arriving from the Rubin/LSST. For those new to the field, I've curated a collection of review articles on AGNsview the collection here.

Publications
Selected Publications
  • Exploring the AGN Accretion Disks using Continuum Reverberation Mapping. Bulletin of Liège Royal Society of Sciences, 93(2), 766–779, 2024.
  • Evidence of Jet induced Optical Microvariability in Radio-loud Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies. MNRAS, Volume 514, Issue 4, 2023.
  • Accretion Disk Sizes from Continuum Reverberation Mapping of AGN Selected from the ZTF Survey. MNRAS, Volume 511, Issue 2, 2022.
  • A comparative study of the physical properties for a representative sample of Narrow and Broad-line Seyfert galaxies. MNRAS Volume 510, Issue 3, 2022.
Link to view all my publications: NASA-ADS
Software
  • Fluent in Python for general programming and scientific computing.
  • Use CCDPROC and PHOTUTILS (Astropy affiliated) for optical data reduction.
  • Contributor to the ARIES data archive team; developed software for effective data management.
  • Extensive use of JAVELIN (MCMC-based) for time series analysis; also familiar with ICCF, DCF, etc. for cross-correlation.
  • Developed Astro Tools – a collection of astronomy utilities and scripts.
  • Use GitHub for version control and code management.
  • Past experience with IDL and some programming in FORTRAN.
  • Basic knowledge of HTML/CSS; maintain a couple of static websites.
Telescope Experience
Outreach/Leadership
  • Event Chair for the Young Astronomers' Meet (YAM)-2022, a conference that brought together about 160 Ph.D. students working in astronomy across the country.
  • Co-founder of CosmicVarta (2021), a web portal presenting simplified versions of astrophysics research articles for the general public. Managed the website until October 2022 and regularly edited articles from researchers across the country.
  • Active participant in outreach activities at my institute, including:
Blog
Sometimes few random things cross my mind and get structured​ in the form of sometimes little, sometimes eerily long blog posts. Currently, my blog is live on medium. I write about astronomy, tech, travel, and thoughts on academia. Some articles are present here:
  • Eyes on the Sky: Current and upcoming telescopes of this decade
  • The Timeless Treasure Trove of Books: Why Reading Matters
  • Digital tools and workflow for managing my research activities
  • Open source, Jupyter, and cloud-based computing in Astronomy
  • How Private Companies Are Getting Ahead in the Space Race
  • My maiden trip to China
  • Gallery

    A visual glimpse into my travels, nature walks, and everyday scenes that made me stop for a moment—sometimes to take in the light, a quiet street, or just something oddly beautiful. No big plan behind the photos—just things that felt worth noticing and saving.

    © 2025 Vivek Kumar Jha. All rights reserved.